Ford F-150, model years 2018 to 2020. Filed by Ford Motor Company and reported to NHTSA on 21 February 2020. 166,196 vehicles potentially affected.
What the notice says Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain 2018-2020 F-150 trucks equipped with high series LED headlamps with Autolamp (On/Off) functionality. The Daytime Running Lamps (DRL) may remain activated instead of dimming to parking lamps when the Master Lighting Switch (MLS) is manually rotated from the "Autolamps" …
Is your vehicle included? Check with your VIN at NHTSA, or ask a dealer. This page is an independent copy of the notice, kept so you can see what changed after it was published. It is not the authority, and the authority’s own text is the one to act on.
Ford's own number for this recall: 20C03. That is the number on the owner letter and on the dealer paperwork. 20V097 is the number NHTSA gave the same campaign, and the number this page is filed under. They are one recall, written two ways.
What owners ask about this recall
- Which vehicles does recall 20V097 cover?
- Ford F-150, model years 2018-2020.
- What is wrong with them?
- Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain 2018-2020 F-150 trucks equipped with high series LED headlamps with Autolamp (On/Off) functionality.
- What can happen if it is not put right?
- DRL that cannot dim may reduce the visibility of other drivers, increasing the risk of a crash.
- Is there a fix yet?
- Yes, and it is free. Ford will notify owners, and dealers will reprogram the body control module, free of charge. The recall began March 10, 2020. Owners may contact Ford customer service at 1-866-436-7332. Ford's number for this recall is 20C03.
- What should I do now?
- Check your own vehicle by its VIN with NHTSA, which is the record to act on. Ford calls this recall 20C03, which is the number on the owner letter and the dealer paperwork.
Answered from the register this site holds. NHTSA is the record to act on.
What the authority says can happen if this is not fixed: “DRL that cannot dim may reduce the visibility of other drivers, increasing the risk of a crash.”
affected
in the notice
caught
| Campaign | 20V097 |
|---|---|
| Filed by | Ford Motor Company |
| System at fault | Exterior Lighting:Headlights |
| Reported to NHTSA | 21 February 2020 |
| Model years | 2018-2020 |
| Vehicles named | FORD F-150 |
What the notice says today
The defect
Ford Motor Company (Ford) is recalling certain 2018-2020 F-150 trucks equipped with high series LED headlamps with Autolamp (On/Off) functionality. The Daytime Running Lamps (DRL) may remain activated instead of dimming to parking lamps when the Master Lighting Switch (MLS) is manually rotated from the "Autolamps" switch position to "Headlamps On." As such, these vehicles fail to comply with the requirements of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) number 108, "Lamps, Reflective Devices and Associated Equipment."
The consequence
DRL that cannot dim may reduce the visibility of other drivers, increasing the risk of a crash.
The remedy
Ford will notify owners, and dealers will reprogram the body control module, free of charge. The recall began March 10, 2020. Owners may contact Ford customer service at 1-866-436-7332. Ford's number for this recall is 20C03.
What it said before
Nothing has changed while we have been watching. We last read the wording of this campaign on 17 September 2026, and it matched the copy we already held.
That copy hashes to d3e65e31ab38a9eaa2bfc280c7ce71ac…, so if it is ever edited the change is provable rather than a matter of memory.
This is one of 663 notices in the record whose component field names exterior lighting. Across that group the median wait before owners were written to was 43 days.
Last checked . No change has been recorded in the wording.
The same recall in other countries
This campaign carries a manufacturer code that also appears in another country’s register, which means the same defect was recalled there too.
- Canada: Transport Canada recall 2020071, recorded 21 February 2020 (within a week of the American filing)
Matched on 20C03, the manufacturer’s own number for this campaign, which is the only field the registers share. Exact match, nothing paired on brand and date. The two dates are adjacent instruments rather than the same one, so a difference of a day or two means nothing.
How often the two countries file on the same day · The European alerts
The models named here, across their whole recall history
How to cite this record
Quoting the wording on this page means quoting a version, so the date belongs in the citation:
CarsMultiverse, recall 20V097, wording as read on 17 September 2026. https://carsmultiverse.com/recall/20v097/
The copy quoted above hashes to d3e65e31ab38a9eaa2bfc280c7ce71ac…. If the notice is reworded later, that fingerprint will not match, which is how a reader checks that the quotation was of the version we say it was.
The cross-border matches used on this site are deposited as a citable dataset: doi:10.5281/zenodo.22087136. The recall wording itself is published by the national authority named above and is theirs, not ours.
The recall record and its wording are published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and are US Government public domain. The dated archive, the comparison and any before-and-after above are CarsMultiverse. How fresh every engine behind this page is, is public on the status page. To check a specific vehicle, use NHTSA’s own VIN lookup.
Other Ford notices we hold
- 26V579: 2026-2027 Transit
- 26V578: 2023-2027 F-150
- 26V577: 2026 F-150
- 26V576: 2026 F-150
- 26V550: 2026 Maverick, F-150, and Bronco Sport
- 26V548: 2026 Explorer, Bronco, Bronco Sport, Mustang, and Ranger
- 26V547: 2024-2026 Mustang
- 26V532: 2026 Explorer
All 776 Ford campaigns we hold · Every manufacturer in the record
The fingerprint of this notice
We take a SHA-256 of each of the three blocks of text the authority publishes and keep the first eight characters. As we last read campaign 20V097 on 23 August 2026, they were:
- Defect summary
a69e1860 - Consequence
f1ecfc4f - Remedy
fc5efd6c
We first read this notice on 21 August 2026. It has not moved since. If it ever does, these characters will not match, and the change will be dated here.
The wording we hold for 20V097 · how the whole register is watched
This notice names one vehicle among several registers that have written about it. Every notice this site holds for the Ford F-150, in all seven, is kept on that vehicle's own page, with the newest in each.
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Owners of these cars
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